Stream of Stuff

[geckzilla]

And I thought I was weird for posting the cicada recipe list earlier this year...

[Ann]

Click to view full size image

507-year-old mollusc, now deceased.
Photo: Bangor University.

In 2006, scientists found a specimen of Arctica islandica bivalve mollusc, which they promptly opened in order to examine it. In doing so, they killed it, and thus ended the life of the longest-lived non-colonial animal so far reported whose age at death can be accurately determined.

Read more here.

[Beyond]

And I thought I was weird for posting the cicada recipe list earlier this year...

It just goes to show, that no matter how smart, dumb, normal or weird you might think you are with something, you'll always find someone that is... More

[neufer]

In 2006, scientists found a specimen of Arctica islandica bivalve mollusc, which they promptly opened in order to examine it. In doing so, they killed it, and thus ended the life of the longest-lived non-colonial animal so far reported whose age at death can be accurately determined.

• 507 years without a colon Open me up, Please

<<Turritopsis dohrnii, the immortal jellyfish, is a hydrozoan whose medusa, or jellyfish, form can revert to the polyp stage after becoming sexually mature. It is the only known case of an animal capable of reverting completely to a sexually immature, colonial stage after having reached sexual maturity as a solitary stage. It does this through the cell development process of transdifferentiation.

Cell transdifferentiation is when the jellyfish "alters the differentiated state of the cell and transforms it into a new cell". In this process the medusa of the immortal jellyfish is transformed into the polyps of a new polyp colony. First, the umbrella reverts itself and then the tentacles and mesoglea get resorbed. The reverted medusa then attaches itself to the substrate by the end that had been at the opposite end of the umbrella and starts giving rise to new polyps to form the new colony. Theoretically, this process can go on indefinitely, effectively rendering the jellyfish biologically immortal, although, in nature, most Turritopsis, like other medusae, are likely to succumb to predation or disease in the plankton stage, without reverting to the polyp form. No single specimen has been observed for any extended period, so it is not currently possible to estimate the age of an individual, and so even if this species has the potential for immortality, there is no laboratory evidence of many generations surviving from any individual.>>

[b][color=#0000FF][size=150]10,000 years old Sponge[/size][/color][/b]

---

• Long-lived Aquatic animals:

Some species of sponges in the ocean near Antarctica are thought to be 10,000 years old.

Specimens of the black coral genus Leiopathes are among the oldest continuously living organisms on the planet: around 4,265 years old.

The giant barrel sponge Xestospongia muta is one of the longest-lived animals, with the largest specimens in the Caribbean estimated to be in excess of 2,300 years.

The black coral Antipatharia in the Gulf of Mexico may live more than 2000 years.

The Antarctic sponge Cinachyra antarctica has an extremely slow growth rate in the low temperatures of the Southern Ocean. One specimen has been estimated to be 1,550 years old.

A specimen of the Icelandic Cyprine Arctica islandica (also known as an ocean quahog), a mollusk, was found to have lived 507 years .

Some confirmed sources estimated Bowhead Whales to have lived at least to 211 years of age, making them the oldest mammals.

[Ann]

How do models become so perfectly beautiful? Maybe like this...

Click to play embedded YouTube video.

Ann

[geckzilla]

That one has been making the rounds quite a bit lately. I think Photoshop is getting a bit too much credit here because they show the step from no makeup, no hair styling, and bad lighting and then make the abrupt step to fully Photoshop airbrushed chick. They should have at least showed it as a three step process to better give credit where it's due. The second step I refer to relies on the skill of the photographer and makeup artists, the intermediate step we've had for decades now since before Photoshop was a glimmer in some programmer's eye.

Anyway, I've boycotted the whole daily prettification ritual my whole life. It's really not that hard when your parent(s) don't indoctrinate you into the whole process from girlhood onward. That disturbs me far worse than an adult woman being glamorized. I've seen some girls get called ugly by their own mothers just for deigning to be photographed without makeup on. Granted, it was somewhat in jest, but at the same time it kind of wasn't.

[Nitpicker]

It is ironic that the beauty industry knows so little about real beauty.

[Beyond]

...deigning...

I Googled "deigning. All i got was "designing".
So you really were saying... that some girls get called ugly by their own mothers just for (designing) to be photographed without makeup on. ... Shouldn't that be-->Desiring

[Nitpicker]

Beyond, I think your Google is broken:

deign

/deɪn/

verb

present participle: deigning

1.
do something that one considers to be beneath one's dignity.
"she did not deign to answer the maid's question"

[owlice]

...deigning...

I Googled "deigning. All i got was "designing".
So you really were saying... that some girls get called ugly by their own mothers just for (designing) to be photographed without makeup on. ... Shouldn't that be-->Desiring

Deign: http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/deign

[Beyond]

Huh. Deigning. A word i didn't know about, that i don't know how to pronounce, that I'll probably never see again, and won't remember. I don't think i will ever deign to use the word deign.

[Ann]

"Deigning" is the kind of word I know, although there are thousands and thousands of everyday little words that I don't know.

The frustrations of speaking English as a second language.

Ann

[owlice]

How to pronounce deign

How I found the video above:

• I typed "how to pronounce deign" into Google

[Beyond]

Now that i know how to pronounce it = dane, like one of the Scandinavian people, i still have no practical use for the word.

[neufer]

[b][color=#BF40FF]Fully Photoshop airbrushed chick[/color][/b]

---

I think Photoshop is getting a bit too much credit here because they show the step from no makeup, no hair styling, and bad lighting and then make the abrupt step to fully Photoshop airbrushed chick. Anyway, I've boycotted the whole daily prettification ritual my whole life. It's really not that hard when your parent(s) don't indoctrinate you into the whole process from girlhood onward. That disturbs me far worse than an adult woman being glamorized. I've seen some girls get called ugly by their own mothers just for deigning to be photographed without makeup on.

Now that i know how to pronounce it = dane

HAMLET: I have heard of your paintings too, well enough; God

• has given you one face, and you make yourselves
  another: you jig, you amble, and you lisp, and
  nick-name God's creatures, and make your wantonness
  your ignorance. Go to, I'll no more on't; it hath
  made me mad. I say, we will have no more marriages:
  those that are married already, all but one, shall
  live; the rest shall keep as they are. To a
  nunnery, go.

[Nitpicker]

The beauty and fashion industries are ultimately creators and purveyors of art. One way to appreciate art is to criticise it -- that is, to analyse and judge its merits and faults. All artworks have both merits and faults. Art certainly has the power to affect the beholder profoundly, but is not always good.

[neufer]

The beauty and fashion industries are ultimately creators and purveyors of art. One way to appreciate art is to criticise it -- that is, to analyse and judge its merits and faults. All artworks have both merits and faults. Art certainly has the power to affect the beholder profoundly, but is not always good.

The fault, dear Nitpicker, is not in your Art, but in yourself.

[Nitpicker]

Everyone's a critic! (I swear my previous comment was not directed at you, neufer.)

[neufer]

Everyone's a critic! (I swear my previous comment was not directed at you, neufer.)

Well said, old mole!

[geckzilla]

Kevin Trudeau has been found guilty and is going to jail, hopefully for a long, long time...

[Beyond]

Unless he forks over the $37,000,000 he was fined.

[owlice]

Kevin Trudeau has been found guilty and is going to jail, hopefully for a long, long time...

Good!

[neufer]

Kevin Trudeau has been found guilty and is going to jail, hopefully for a long, long time...

Good!

Why is everyone taking this so personally?

[owlice]

My younger brother died of AIDS; some "hoax" that turned out to be, hmm?

[Beyond]

Why is everyone taking this so personally?

I'm not. But then, I'm not "everyone".